There are over 300 churches in Waco, and according to University Baptist Church Waco Lead Pastor Andie Pellicer, women lead fewer than five of them. A recent vote passed at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting sets out to further restrict the roles women in Waco and beyond are allowed to hold in their churches.
Waco is an epicenter of Baptist life. Home to the world’s largest Baptist university, the city’s historical association with the Baptist tradition is undeniable.
At this year’s conference, Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, put forward a motion titled the “Truth and Unity Amendment,” which limits the office of pastor and the act of preaching to men.
Almost three-quarters of the local church delegates voted in favor.
For any change to be made to the SBC’s constitution, the vote must pass at two consecutive meetings. If it passes again at the next conference in 2027, it will be codified.
“The largest churches in [Waco] where the most college students go, … some of them are Southern Baptist churches that may have women in roles that might be affected by this …” explained the Rev. Dr. Meredith Stone.
Harris Creek Baptist Church and Highland Baptist Church, highly popular among Baylor students, are affiliated with the SBC.
Read more: The Purpose Driven Life
Stone currently serves as the interim pastor for preaching at Calvary Baptist Church in Waco, and as the executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry. She has dedicated most of her career to advocating for women in church leadership.
Since 2000, the SBC’s statement of faith, the Baptist Faith and Message, has stated that only men can hold the title of pastor. However, while the statement of faith remained the same, individual churches were still able to abide by their own rules.
But then things started to change.
In 2021, one of the largest SBC churches in the nation, Saddleback Church, ordained several female staff members as pastors. Shortly after, a messenger at the SBC meeting called for the church to be investigated. In 2023, Saddleback was voted out. Alongside Saddleback, several other churches were ousted. Other churches began changing the title of women on their staff from pastor to minister or director to avoid being targeted.
Stone explained this year’s vote on the constitutional ban is an attempt to enforce and police what was previously classified as a confessional statement.
“This has kind of always been more about women as senior pastors and in senior leadership,” she explained. “But now the way they are talking about it is the office of pastor. So even women who have titles like children’s pastor, missions pastor, women’s pastor — they’re saying that is in violation to even have the title.”
On Mohler’s podcast, he claimed that even women interpreting scripture on a podcast would cross the line, as they would be functioning in a pastoral role.
“I just think about all the little girls and all the young women who don’t get to see themselves in their pastor,” Pellicer said.
Baylor’s Honor Code, its Student Conduct Code, and its Sexual Conduct Code are all informed by an older version of the Baptist Faith and Message. For decades, Baylor was largely governed by the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), the state-level convention for Texas historically affiliated with the SBC. However, in 1990, Baylor amended its charter, gaining greater independence from the BGCT.
At the same time, theological and political divides following a conservative resurgence in the SBC led to the development of another state convention — the Southern Baptists of Texas. This group held that the BGCT had become too moderate and wanted the Texas convention to adopt the growing fundamentalism in the national denomination. The two groups split from one another and Baylor continued to maintain a relationship with the BGCT.
Shortly after Baylor amended its charter, redefining its relationship with the BGCT, Truett Seminary was founded — a seminary which boldly affirmed women as pastors and accepted women into the program to prepare them for ministry leadership.
Since Truett was founded, Baylor and Waco have become an advocacy hub for women in ministry. Alongside the Waco-based Baptist Women in Ministry headquarters, several voices have emerged from Baylor as key in this ongoing debate — perhaps most notably in Beth Allison Barr, author of Making a Biblical Womanhood.
Listen now: The Making of Beth Allison Barr
But it is not just restricting women from having a specific title or role that opponents of the ban express concern over — it is also the issues that they say will stem from continuing to remove the influence of women from the church and silence their voices.
“When anybody’s voice is weighted above another person, that person whose voice is minimized is in danger,” said Pellicer.
Stone points to data collected by Gallup that reveals young men see religion as more important to them than young women.
“It’s the first time that it’s ever been this way and scholars are pointing to the increasing patriarchal environments of evangelicalism as part of the cause for why young women are walking away from church and faith and why young men are finding it more appealing,” Stone explained. “… Women are in the position of they either have to submit in order to be a part of faith or they’re gonna walk away from faith entirely.”
Stone says this patriarchal environment may not only inhibit women from having a voice in the church but has also foster a culture of abuse within the SBC.
“That theology of patriarchy and only men being in charge and of women’s submission enables these kinds of issues and harm to be done to people,” Stone said. “Now don’t get me wrong, in denominations where women are affirmed as ministers and pastors, there can still be sexual abuse, there can still be abuse of power — but they don’t have the theology backing them. This is when God is being used as a weapon of harm when theology is a part of all of these things.”
Pellicer also fears how the silencing of women could lead to potential exploitation.
“I’m scared for the women who will suffer abuse and have to do so in silence,” said Pellicer.
Pellicer said she also fears the rhetoric and positioning of the SBC will continue to justify the financial exploitation of women working in churches.
“We live in a patriarchy that continues to exploit women for unpaid labor,” she explained. “So while a woman won’t be given the title of pastor or put in the pulpit, she will be expected to put 40 hours in as a kids’ director. She will be expected to drop everything with a moment’s notice to make food for a funeral.”
Stone pointed out that women are possibly being exploited in another way — as a distraction for sexual abuse scandals allegedly already happening within the convention. Around the same time the SBC was forced into a third-party investigation over its handling of sexual abuse allegations, its leaders were reopening the debate on women in ministry. The investigation report released by Guidepost Solutions in 2022 reads in its opening, “For almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the [SBC Executive Committee] to report child molesters and other abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church staff. They made phone calls, mailed letters, sent emails, appeared at SBC and EC meetings, held rallies, and contacted the press . . . only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the [executive committee].”
“While the reform was supposed to be happening for that, and while certain leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention were in the position of being the bad guy, they decided we need to create a new enemy,” explained Stone.
Stone said in order to divert attention from the scandals being exposed throughout the investigation, leaders rallied the denomination around the issue of women in ministry.
“I think the timing is a diversion from the need for sexual abuse reform within the Southern Baptist Convention,” she said.
While the recent SBC conference has garnered significant media attention, once again bringing women in ministry to the forefront of the public’s mind, Stone, Pellicer, and other female ministers in the Waco area and beyond have been facing pushback for years.
While Pellicer’s church is not affiliated with the SBC, she said she frequently encounters opposition, often from Baylor students.
“I guest lectured in a class in the School of Education and one of the students in the class went and talked to the professor and said, ‘Hey, I don’t believe women should be pastors. Do I have to come to class when she’s speaking?’” Pellicer recalled.
Additionally, when she and her staff represent UBC at Baylor’s annual church fair, students often come to their table wanting to debate the role of women in the church, she said.
“They come to our table, and they want to fight with us … Well, they won’t fight with me. They’ll fight with my one male pastor, and he won’t fight back,” she said.
But despite the resistance that both Pellicer and Stone have faced, they continue in advocacy, not only because of their own callings to ministry, but for the women who will follow them.
“Some folks have said to me, ‘Meredith, why do you even try?… Why do you even engage the Southern Baptist Convention?…’” Stone said. “I think somewhere inside of me, I’m kind of a delusional optimist. You have to be in advocacy work because … while we are working towards certain outcomes, we can’t let the achievement of those outcomes determine whether or not we will do it. We have to do it because we know it’s right, and we’re going to do it regardless of whether or not we see the fruit of change in systems.
“We want to see that change happen within individuals.”
